1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing control device, an image forming system, and a non-transitory computer-readable medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there is an image forming apparatus equipped with clear toner, which is colorless toner containing no color material, in addition to four CMYK toners. A toner image formed of such clear toner is fixed on a transfer sheet (an example of a recording medium) on which an image has been formed of CMYK toners, and as a result, a visual or tactile effect (referred to as a surface effect) is achieved on the surface of the transfer sheet. The achieved surface effect differs depending on what kind of a clear-toner image is formed and how the clear-toner image is fixed. There are a surface effect of simply glossing and a surface effect of suppressing the gloss.
Furthermore, not only giving a surface effect on a whole area but also giving a surface effect on only a part and a surface effect of adding a texture or a watermark by means of clear toner are required. Moreover, surface protection may also be required. Furthermore, there is a surface effect that can be achieved by performing post-processing by a dedicated post-processing apparatus, such as a glosser or a low-temperature fixing device, besides the fixing control.
For example, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2012-083736, there is known a technology to control how to attach clear toner according to gloss control printing data that indicates a type of surface effect to be achieved on a transfer sheet by predetermined density information. In the technology disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2012-083736, a host device generates gloss control printing data on the basis of a surface-effect selection table implemented in a DFE (a printing control device), and inputs the generated gloss control printing data to the DFE. The DFE generates clear-toner printing data for attachment of colorless clear toner on the basis of the gloss control printing data input from the host device and the surface-effect selection table implemented in the DFE in advance, and outputs the generated clear-toner printing data.
However, in the technology disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2012-083736, the gloss control printing data is created on the basis of the specific surface-effect selection table; therefore, when a printing control device having a different surface-effect selection table from the surface-effect selection table used by the host device to create the gloss control printing data performs printing control based on a print job from the host device, an intended print result cannot be obtained.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide a printing control device, an image forming system, and a non-transitory computer-readable medium capable of obtaining the same level of print result as an expected print result even when gloss control printing data based on a different surface-effect selection table from a pre-implemented surface-effect selection table has been input.